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THE DAY BAGHDAD WAS BOMBED

cable TV and watched in horror the devastating strikes as they hit Baghdad.
I even daringly went up the roof (Arab houses were mostly f at) to see for
myself the Tomahawk cruise missiles f ying through the Baghdad skies. As the
missiles fell, Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries opened up across the city. T e New
York Times article of 22 December 1998 by Stephen Kinzer clearly summed
up the feeling, “Certainly there was an air of theatre about the streaking
anti-aircraft f re that lit up the sky during the bombing raids. Most, if not all
of it, came from low-caliber weapons that had no more chance of shooting
down a jet f ghter than a popgun would have. Its only purpose was to give
Iraqis a sense that they were in some way masters of their destiny and not
simply mute subjects.”

Series of deafening explosions echoed around the city, and the sky was lit
up by tracer rounds and exploding shells. My house also shook from the
explosions which were a mere f ve kilometres away. I knew then that this
would be a sleepless night with loud explosions and frightening tremors
keeping us all awake throughout the night.

T ey began to hit military and industrial targets in Iraq, mostly situated in
Baghdad. It was later reported that there were intensive airstrikes involving
650 sorties against nearly 100 targets. A total of 415 cruise missiles were
launched, including 325 Tomahawks f red by U.S. Navy forces and 90
heavier cruise missiles deployed from Air Force B-52s. Among the targets
were suspected weapons plants, Iraqi intelligence agencies, a defence ministry
building and fortif cations of the military unit known as the Republican
Guard.

T e next day, when the bombings stopped, the embassy staf quickly
gathered all Malaysians, including eight students, to immediately evacuate
them to Amman, Jordan. T e embassy already had a contingency evacuation
plan and each of us knew our task. We knew this would be an arduous task
as we had to transport our families and the students by land to Amman as
no f ights were allowed in or out of Baghdad then, due to the “no-f y zone”
imposed on Iraq. T e cost for the bus to ferry them was also exorbitantly high
but we did not have any other option. Together with my wife, our daughters
and the students in the bus were other family members of the home-based
staf . We immediately contacted our colleagues at the Malaysian Embassy in

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